The study of Communism has tended to emphasize the
revolutionary aspects of terror and subversion with little attention to the
importance of its Marxian ideology as a basis for cultural transformation. Since
this is the current emphasis in Communist countries, it is important to
understand the significance of this phase of the revolution as the groundwork
for the emergence of Communism as a finished order of harmony and equality among
men.

Marx and Engels endeavored to develop a social theory
based upon the dynamic concepts of natural science as it was developing in the
early nineteenth century. Their purpose was to create a new concept of natural
law that would provide a scientific basis for social change. They chose to
formulate this order of change after the pattern of the Hegelian dialectic
rather than the Darwinian concept of struggle. Forgetting to leave their basic
formulation open to changes in mathematics and physics, they passed on to their
followers a social theory that was not subject to change. It became a dogma and
remains such to the present time.

Communist leaders seized upon Marxian dialectical
materialism as the basis for a complete revolution in Russia. They found in Marx
an element of "messianism" or "apocalypticisin" which made a
strong appeal to the messianic consciousness of Russian revolutionaries and
formed the basis for a totalitarian reconstruction of Russian society by
force. The patterns of revolutionary procedure developed in the Bolshevik
Revolution of 1917 and following have become the basis of the Communist
revolution in every country now under Communist control.

The Communist International of 1928 declared that
atheistic scientific materialism was to be the basis of the new culture in
Communist lands. The Soviets and the Chinese have applied this principle with
vigor. Such attempts to create cultural uniformity have met with some resistance
in both Russia and China. There are indications that the older techniques of
repression and terror have failed and that more moderate techniques in the field
of education and consumer benefits will be employed to induce the acceptance of
cultural uniformity.

The study of Communism has for many years focused upon the
announced statements of its propagandists to destroy capitalism. This approach
tends to accentuate the revolutionary strategy and tactics of Communism as they
relate to its governing ideology, Marxism. It tends to minimize, however, the
ultimate objective of the Communist movement, namely, the crea

Revision
of a paper presented in absentia at the 18th annual convention of the ASA held
at Westmont College, Santa Barbara, Calif., Aug. 19-23, 1963.

Dr. Kamm Is Professor of History and Social Science, Chairman
of the Division of Social Sciences, and Faculty Coordinator of the Alumni
Research Program on "Christianity, the Free Society, and the Communist
Challenge" at Wheaton College, Wheaton, nlinois. Much of the material in
this paper was secured as part of the research under that program, which was
initiated in 1961.

tion
of a new world order based upon atheistic, scientific materialism.1

Many Americans are unprepared
to deal adequately with the phenomenon of Communism. The variety of its
manifestations are sometimes baffling to the trained mind. For Communism is now
a world-wide movement. It presents various stages of historical development and
is united only in its professed adherence to a body of doctrine known as
Marxism. Even the doctrine is found to have a variety of interpreters: Trotsky,
Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Krushchev. Nationalistic variations also are in
evidence. One has to realize that the Communism of Yugo-Slavia is different in
application from that of Russia, China, or the satellite countries of Europe.
Polycentralism is the new order of power concentration in the Communist world.2 Were
it not for these ideological deviations and nationalistic divisions in the power
structure, Communism would today rule most of the world with an iron hand.

METHODOLOGY

The late C. Wright Mills
criticized social scientists in general because of the limited view of history
imposed upon them by their commitment to a methodology of study that is grounded
in scientific positivism. He sought to show that the methodology of Marx was
superior in any study of human phenomena because of the broad sweep of its
historical perspective, because of its commitment to values that condemned
rather than approved, and because of its sense of the apocalyptic.3
What Mills is suggesting is that the social scientist must be prepared to work
within a broader framework of reference than that permitted by the usual
scientific method. He must, like the physician, be prepared to go beyond case
history diagnosis to the application of the art of medicine. Leo Strauss urges
that social scientists adopt the perspective of the citizen, the practitioner of
the Civic Art.4 Having done so, he will be able to employ both
scientific findings and the normative values of the given community in his
determination of public policy. Eric Voegelin urges an additional step, that
social scientists seek for the "cosmion," the internal realm of
meaning which has its outer manifestation in the institutional arrangement of a
given society.5 Similarly, Kenneth Boulding asks that mechanical
models be set aside in order that the psychological concept of the image may be
employed in the study of human motivation as a basis for a science of human
behavior.6 Each of these critics implies that the social scientist
must be able to go beyond the behavioral emphasis into the realm of cultural
studies, including religion.7 This is particularly true in the study
of Communism which involves every aspect of the cultural heritage of the West.

THE MARXIAN MODEL

The universal claim of every
Communist theoretician that he is a follower of Marxism requires some
consideration of the model which Marx created as the basis of his system. Marx
lived in a day when the thought life of the Continent was dominated by the
philosophic outlook of Kant and Hegel. These distinguished philosophers, seeking
to contest the influence of British empiricism, strove to establish the
principle that true Being or reality was thought and reason rather than sensory
experience. Hegel, in particular, had rejected the revelational principles of
Christianity as a means of social reform because the Gospel was directed
"to the individual as an individual detached from his social and political
nexus."8

This perspective both Marx and
Engels adopted. But they chose to abandon Hegel's philosophical rationalism in
search of a scientific system that would provide a complete break with any
concept of an absolute, either religious or philosophic. Their object was to
create a model that would liberate man from the old order of restraint unto a
new order of scientific living. Thus released, men would be able to employ the
forces of history to realize constructive change. Social change would be
cataclysmic in nature, but it would make possible the creation of a new world in
which man would realize himself as a man. Man's estrangement from reality, so
clearly portrayed in the early economic and philosophic manuscripts of Marx,
would finally be overcome.9

The Marxian model is a curious
alchemy of ideas taken from nineteenth century mathematical physies,10
ancient philosophy, Hegelian metaphysics, social and economic thought, and the
Bible. It consists primarily of three parts or phases. First, there is the basic
theoretical formulation which is strikingly similar to the view of the universe
then employed by mathematicians and physicists. The universe, assumed Marx,
consisted primarily of matter in motion, and the order of that motion was one of
contest leading to the creation of new manifestations of matter. The process was
evolutionary, but evolutionary in the sense of the Hegelian dialectic rather
than the Darwinian idea of the survival of the fittest. Such a theoretical
formulation, couched in the mathematical thought forms of his age and inspired
by the rationalist thinkers of France and Germany, provided him with a type of
metaphysics that liberated him from the domination of eternal ideas, as in
Hegel, or the concept of divine sovereignty, as in the Hebrew-Christian
theology. It gave him a platform from which to launch an attack upon every form
of social thought then existent, particularly the Socialist theories of the
time, which was geared to some form of scientific thought based upon the
Hegelian or Darwinian concept of change.

What Marx really attempted was
the formulation of a new conception of natural law which would be in harmony
with the theories then being advanced by Carnot and Clausius in the realm of
physics.11 Marx was so intrigued by the possibilities of his basic
formulation that he, like the other rationalists before him, made of his system
a deterministic one, forgetting, meanwhile, that it is of the very nature of
science to undergo change. He left his followers, therefore, with a basic
formulation which could not grow with the expanding theoretical conceptions of
physics and the natural sciences.

These basic formulations enabled Marx to create a new social
theory in which he used many of the ideas of contemporary social and economic
theoreticians but cast them into a form of deterministic sociology. For Marx
there was but one law of history, economic determinism; one key to the
interpretation of history, the class struggle; one outcome for the course of
history, the cataclysmic collapse of the capitalistic order; one means of
preserving civilization in the period of forthcoming chaos, the dictatorship of
the proletariat; one future for all mankind, the communist utopia when each man
would produce according to his ability and each would consume according to his
need. This social and historical phase of the model was assumed to be scientific
in that it was based upon his materialistic metaphysics and rejected any
philosophic (idealist) interpretation of history and gave no place for any kind
of theologism.

EVALUATING THE MARXIAN
MODEL

The student who comes to Marx
with a framework of thought which includes a knowledge of theology and
philosophy as well as natural science finds it difficult to accept Marx's
contention at face value. He discovers, first of all, that Marx's monistic
emphasis upon economic factors in the life of man is subject to question. He f
inds that a careful study of the idea of class is not always supported by
historical evidence. He finds it difficult to accept without question the
assumed scientific prediction of cataclysm announced in the
Manifesto and laboriously argued in Das Kapital. And as he
analyzes his own thought processes, he discovers that he is being asked to take
an adventure in credence far beyond the scientific evidence submitted in the
basic analysis in order to be able to accept the idea of the coming order of
equality, harmony, and justice that is to prevail in the promised era of
Communism. What he soon discovers is simply that he has been asked to accept as
prediction what in fact is prophecy.12

This discovery leads to a
clearer understanding of the Marxian system, namely, that the Marxian model is
based not only on a form of thought in imitation of the scientific formulations
of the nineteenth century, but upon a mystical order of thought which is
reminiscent of the Christian conception of the ultimate cataclysmic destruction
of the historical order, human and natural, and the ultimate erection of a new
order of perfect justice in the life of man and perfect harmony in the order of
nature. One student of Marx has pointed out that the entire prophetic pattern of
Marxian thought is "a secularized version of the Book of Revelation."13

Recent scholars observe that
this religious element in Marxian thought links him with the messianic elements
of the Jacobins of the French Revolution, the advocates of democratic
totalitarianism.14 It was this "messianic myth-creating
religious side" of Marxian doctrine, rather than the "determinist,
evolutionary scientific side" which gave the primary impetus to the
revolutionary thrust of the Russian Bolshevik movement.15 For Lenin
grasped the significance of the "messianic" implications of the
Marxian doctrine of the dictatorship of the proletariat and read into it the
Russian nihilistic doctrine of revolution.

It is this crypto-religious
dogmatism of the Marxian model which gives rise to the totalitarian practices
that shock persons living within the semi-religious and semisecular cultural
systems of the West. Such a governing image has required the creation of a
"closed society"
whose life will reflect completely the model embraced. Rigid control of the life
of the individual within this new society is justified as the means whereby the
social model is enforced. And the techniques of enforcement are strikingly
similar to those employed by the authoritarian medieval church, namely,
deprivation of social or professional privilege, isolation, and even execution
for deviation in thought. Purges of party leaders and intelligentsia as well as
the murder of those who try to escape are all part of this attempt to enforce
the "holy" model. What is more important still is its use as the basis
of a complete cultural revolution.

THE COMMUNIST CULTURAL
REVOLUTION

The cultural revolution based
on the Bolshevik interpretation of Marx is set forth in the Program of the
Communist International adopted in 1928. The language of the document is quite
instructive:

The ultimate aim of the
Communist International Is to replace world capitalist economy by a world system
of communism .... Culture will become the acquirement of all and the class
ideologies of the past will give place to scientific materialist philosophy ....
This new culture of a humanity that is united for the first time in history, and
has abolished all State boundaries, will, unlik e capitalist culture, be based
upon clear and transparent human relationships. Hence, it will bury forever all
mysticism, religion, prejudice and superstition and will give a powerful impetus
to the development of all-conquering scientific knowledge. (16)

The path to this cultural
revolution is inseparably linked with a technique developed during the Russian
Revolution of 1917. First must come the social revolution characterized by
ruthless power. Seize the power of the state by force; eliminate the
industrialists and the agriculturalists who are committed to a system of private
entrepreneuralism; harass the leaders of religious institutions and forbid their
instructional activities; develop a new political and military elite by
selecting willing sycophants from the intelligensia, the lower middle class
(where it exists), and the representatives of military, labor, and peasant
groups for training in revolutionary techniques; introduce some form of
"representative" governmental practices in which the power of decision
lies in the hands of a small group or council (soviet); create a governing elite
known as a party which will be indoctrinated in the Marxist ideology and trained
to supervise all institutional life in the interests of the ruling clique;
nationalize all industry and agriculture; and supervise all of the cultural life
in such manner that its form and content will be in harmony with the basic
spirit and principles of the prevailing ideology.

How do the Communists render the large masses of people
within their jurisdiction subject to the radical changes which must be made in
order to effect this social revolution? In every major Communist revolution in
this century the leadership has had the support of a military force which is
recruited initially to liberate the people from their oppressors. Once this is
accomplished within the country, military rule is continued on the plea that
enemies of the revolution are about to invade the country. Behind an incessant
propaganda of hate and fear directed toward one or more countries outside the
Communist orbit, the revolutionary leadership then inaugurates a complete social
revolution.17

The social
revolution is premised upon the necessity of developing a new cultural system.
Fundamentally, the system is grounded in the dialectical materialism of Marx and
Engels. Large elements of the population are trained in the principles of
Darwinian evolutionism of the ninetenth century variety in an effort to break
down what are identified as "outmoded" systems of thought, namely,
religiously oriented explanations of the origin of life and man. Religious
propaganda is forbidden in the churches, synagogues, and mosques, and
church-sponsored schools are closed. The public educational program, which is
designed to be universal for all youth, requires indoctrination in Marxism along
with instruction in the usual subject matter areas. The whole object of the
educational process is to bring into being a new type of man who will be
responsive to scientific truth alone and will find in service to the new
collective order the highest goals for living.18

The 1961 Draft Program of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union re-emphasizes this stress upon scientific
education as basic to the cultural revolution and the ultimate realization of
Communism. The section which outlines party responsibility for the future links
the elimination of the survivals of capitalism in the minds and behavior of the
people with the extension of training in the achievements of modern science.
Modern science, the Program declares, "steadily solves the mysteries of the
universe and extends man's power over nature, leaving no room for religious
inventions about supernatural forces."19 This is to be
accomplished without "insulting the sentiments of believers."20

THE CULTURAL IMPACT UNDER
COMMUNIST REGIMES

The impact
of this forced revolution upon the cultural aspects of life in Communist
countries has become an object of scientific inquiry in the last decade. The
picture now emerging reveals a continuing conflict between Communist rulers and
the leaders in science, social science, literature, the arts, and even religion
for the right of self-expression. The scientists appear to have resisted this
stress upon conformity to the Marxist ideology with the greatest degree of
success.21 Literature and the arts have been able to maintain varying
degrees of freedom. Institutional religion has largely succumbed to the
political pressures exerted in the alternating periods of terror and tolerance.
which have characterized governmental policy toward various religious systems.
Social science appears to have surrendered most completely to the demands of
Communist domination. This is probably due to the fact that the Communist
ideology is quite dependent upon the social sciences for its justification. In
his presentation of the Draft Program in October 1961, Khrushchev acknowledged
the Soviet's dependence upon the social sciences as "the scientific basis
for the guidance of the development of society."22

This reliance upon the social
sciences in the creation of the Soviet man has required their prostitution to
the furtherance of the Marxian dialectical dogma. Political tampering with the
writing of Russian History has long been recognized by American historians who
follow the development of Russian historiography. Since 1929 all writers of
Russian history are obliged to maintain the Marxist perspective.23
Even the Khrushchev thaw has not brought complete liberty to the Russian
historian. He must still be responsive to the will of the Communist Party in his
interpretation of men and events. Fortunately, Russian policy now permits the
circulation of some official histories in English translation thus permitting
students of history in English-speaking countries critically to evaluate the
present stage of historical writing in the oldest Communist regime.24 M.
W. Thompson's foreword to A. L. Mongait's Archeology in the U.S.S.R. acknowledges
the same influence in archeological interpretation.25

Recent translations of Russian
textbooks in anthropology, state law, and international law reveal similar
influences. It is to be noted, however, that Nestorkh's Origin of Man tends
to follow the Darwinian evolutionary philosophy of the late nineteenth century
pattern rather than pure Marxism. This is undoubtedly made necessary by the fact
that Marx and Engels adopted the Darwinian evolutionary philosophy of the
American ethnologist, Lewis H. Morgan, author of Ancient Society,26when
dealing with the origin of human culture.27

The sustained influence of the
Marxist dogma upon social scientists in Russia was dramatically displayed at the
Fifth World Congress of Sociology held in Washington, D.C., in September 1962. A
debate between two Russian sociologists and a professor of sociology from the
Sorbonne on the subject of Stalinism revealed that the Russian Marxists still
felt bound by Marxist dogma in their interpretation of this sociological
phenomenon, while the French scholar, described as a "western
Marxist," declared, "It is impossible to treat a doctrine as
perpetually historically true.1128 Similarly, Russian philosophers present at
the International Philosophy Conference in Mexico City last September stoutly
defended the Marxian dialectic as the only epistemological basis for thought.29

The psychological impact of
the "closed" system of training now employed in both Russia and China
is a matter of increasing concern to psychologists, social scientists, and
politicians. The very fact that men or women attempting to escape the
territorial confines of a Communist dominated country are often shot in their
tracks is substantial evidence of a mind set radically different from that which
prevails in the West. Conversations with cultural exchange representatives from
Communist countries often reveal a mental outlook on the part of the Communist
representative which cannot interact fully with that of the Westerner.30
This appears to be due to both the fact of government surveillance and the type
of education given to such individuals, which renders them unable to discuss at
any length issues which center around value systems other than those contained
in the Marxist

There may be limits to the
indoctrination program now employed in the attainment of the cultural
revolution. Already there is evidence that the older generation of Russians is
becoming disillusioned and cynical over the failure of Communist leaders to
realize the propaganda-supported dreams of the first revolution. The result is a
growing indifference to politics and a resignation to cynicism toward life.31
The reintroduction of Russian literary classics in the schools and the
public distribution of some of the classics in the bookshops may suggest a need
to buttress the sagging morale of the Russian people by permitting them to feed
upon their national spiritual heritage.32 Red China is following a
similar policy on the ground that the ancient Chinese philosophers set forth the
basic principles of the ideology now maintained in the People's Republic.33

Recent scientific studies of
Communist control techniques in the satellite countries show that these regimes
are now decreasing the use of terror and raising the standard of living.34
A similar relaxation of tensions is now evident in Russia where greater liberty
of self-expression is being permitted in literature and the arts.35
This new tactic in population manipulation appears to be related to the effort
of the Soviet to create a consumer's utopia through a decided increase in the
production of consumable goods. Should these goals not be realized, it is
difficult to predict the effect upon the Russian mind.36 No one
familiar with the Russian scene is prepared to forecast an armed uprising by the
population in that country because of the long separation of the Russian masses
from the Western concept of individual freedom.

IMPACT UPON AMERICAN
CULTURE

The impact of the Communist
revolution upon the cultural outlook of the United States is a topic which
deserves more attention than the space provided here. American entrepreneurs
have reacted violently to the pattern of centralized control of production by
the state. American political leadership has decried the pattern of one-party
control and totalitarian rule which is characteristic of the Communist
revolution. An early interest in Soviet educational techniques has given way to
aversion because of the subjection of education to political purposes. The
suppression of institutional religion in all Communist countries has met with
solid opposition primarily because of its effect upon freedom of thought. The
attempt of Communist leadership to dominate science in the interests of Soviet
political expansion has been greeted with a response of genuine alarm. Voices of
criticism have hailed the attempt to make literature, philosophy, social science
and the arts conform to the dialectical mold.

Psychologists and social
scientists have often decried the crudeness of political manipulation apparent
in establishing the Pavlovian school of thought as basic to the Soviet
understanding of the mind. But psychologists have secretly been intrigued by the
effectiveness of mass control techniques worked out by Communist psychologists.
This was particularly manifest when American soldiers were subjected to some of
the Communist mass control techniques during the Korean War.37 Social
psychologists have been studying these techniques as well as dietary regulation
in an effort to discover how effective controls may be established over large
populations. More recently the science of Cybernetics has received attention as
a technique for improving the communication capacity of human beings.38 And
now, the identification of the DNA factor in human heredity opens the door to
the controlled development of superior human physical characteristics.39

Social scientists,
philosophers, and theologians are concerned over these tendencies in American
life. Social scientists, in particular, have expressed their concern already
over the government subsidy of science in the schools to the exclusion of social
science. This practice, they aver, opens the possibility of developing a new
generation of Americans who understand natural science but have little
familiarity with the governing values in American culture. The popular demand,
heard in some quarters, that scientists should rule raises a serious question of
public policy when it is realized that scientists have often declared that they
sense no social responsibility for their scientific findings.

Above and beyond all of this
is the basic question, Which values shall govern in American society? American
values have been derived largely from the Western tradition which is rooted in
the revelational literature of the Hebrews and the Christians, modified in
thought and expression by the philosophers of the classical world, and adapted
to life through reason and the discoveries of experimental science. Shall
Americans abandon this basis for its value system? Most Americans would probably
answer, No! But who can foretell the effect of a generation of educational
effort which stresses the scientific understandings of life and the universe at
the expense of the revelational and the philosophic? Is it
not possible that, as Toynbee suggests, America is moving in the direction of a
secularized society which in its outlook and practices would be little different
from the modified Communist system now developing in those countries facing the
sixth decade of their totalitarian revolution?40

REFERENCES

1.
The Commission on Social Action, National Association of Evangelicals,
"Soviet Propaganda and the Vulnerability of the West," Soviet Total
War, Washington, D.C.: U.S. House of Reppresentatives, Committee on Un-American
Activities, 1956, H, p. 468.

10. Marx's
reliance on mathematical physics is revealed in a diagram entitled "Process
of Reproduction in Capital," published in Joel Carmichael, An Illustrated
History of Russia,
N.Y.: Reynal and Company, 1960, p. 127.

20. Ibid.
The techniques to
be employed In such education were previously outlined in an article by E. I.
Petrovsky, "Atheistic Education in the School," Sovietakaya Pedagogika,
1955, No. 5, pp.
3-19, now available In Statement
of Principles and Policy in Atheistic
Education in Soviet Russia, West Baden Springs, Ind.: a privately printed
article by the transcriber, John A. Harden, S.J., 1959.

22.
Whitney, Thomas J., op. cit., p. 216. Information on cultural change in Russia
and the satellite countries is now available In scientific journals,
publications of learned societies, Problems of
Communism,
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Information Agency, 1951), and a number of special
studies that have appeared recently.